Slavery In Colonial Virginia

Before we get into the main topic I feel a little background is always good. In the American colonies Virginia was the first colony to have slaves in 1619. They were first treated as indentured servants still able to get their freedom after their work, some even once freed had their own indentured servants such as Anthony Johnson. The black population increased over the years; in 1625 they only had 23 slaves, in 1649 they only had 300, and in 1690 they had 950 slaves in Virginia. New England was next to have slaves and the were only slaves if they had one of the three requirements; they had to be captives of war, they sold themselves into slavery/ or the government sentenced them to slavery. In New England they were called “Strangers”. New …show more content…
All slaves were different because they were treated different depending on where they were from, small numbers of slaves were treated like family almost and large plantations containing one hundred plus slaves were very strict and treated horrible. Slaves were treated, bought, and sold like household items. Some but not all slave owner were horrible and would kill slaves for no reasons sometimes and for how they were treated slave owners didn 't want to leave in fear their slaves would rebel and kill their families but on the other had didn 't want to give their slaves weapons in fear for the same reason. Although Alexander Hamilton and John Lauren 's said to give them weapons in exchange for their freedom and that they should do so or else Britain would do it instead. And British Governor, Lord Dunmore made a proclamation doing just that; slaves could fight with the British and in doing so would be free on British land. Between three thousand and four thousand slaves signed this proclamation and by the end of the war ten thousand slaves died or escaped. After the war some slave owners saw they were hypocritical fighting for their independence and freedom so they let all their slaves go. Now that the big war was over slavery was a big weight on everyone 's …show more content…
In the military blacks did not have more equality they were still treated as slaves, even in the north, but they did all from infantry to being cooks. The south did not want blacks to join the military because they feared a rebellion if they got weapons, in doing so not many blacks did not fight in the Civil war initially, but later once the south saw they were losing the war they created the Confederate States Colored Troops allowing blacks to join the war. Throughout the Civil War sixteen medals of honor went to blacks and fourteen metal of honors went to blacks for the battle of New Market